Each year, our India site conducts support activities with the goal of bettering living environments in the region. In fiscal 2024, we supported the expansion of an examination room at a public hospital to improve the health of people in the community where our site is located. We also undertook activities to build bright and safe public restrooms with photovoltaic power generation in the communities where our company’s site is located.

Furthermore, we are working to improve the educational environment for children and have supported local schools by donating study desks, upgrading school lunch facilities, paving school grounds, and improving schoolyards in fiscal 2024.

We will continue to create an environment that allows local residents to live in peace and children to grow up healthy.

At our sites in Wuxi and Suzhou, China, our employees support senior citizens during the Chrysanthemum Festival in October each year, which is part of China’s Respect-for-the-Aged Day. In fiscal 2024, a total of approximately 90 employees attended this activities.

As one example of our initiatives, we visited the homes of senior citizens living alone in the community and utilized our knowledge of electricity to check any problems that they may have there. In any hazards that were identified, we donated and even installed electrical outlets and non-slip handrails manufactured by the Panasonic Group. Furthermore, we also visit local nursing homes to donate daily necessities.

In addition to our business activities, we contribute to the creation of a safe and secure society for everyone of all ages.

The Panasonic Group is working as a unified entity on the LIGHT UP THE FUTURE project to illuminate the future of regions without electricity. In collaboration with NGOs, NPOs, international organizations, and various other partners, this project delivers light using renewable energy to local regions, and contributes to the building of a sustainable society free from poverty through support programs.

Through this project and its predecessors, we delivered a total of nearly 120,000 solar lanterns made by Panasonic Energy to regions in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere without electricity from fiscal 2010 to fiscal 2023.

By replacing kerosene lamps with solar lanterns, we are reducing CO2 emissions as we help to prevent fires and mitigate the health impacts of smoke.

The light from these solar lanterns also enables learning, medical activities, and manual labour at night, thereby helping to create opportunities for education, health, and higher incomes. Moreover, these reliable light sources also help invigorate family time and community.

Panasonic Energy has contributed to local communities through educational activities on the types, history, and proper ways of using batteries. Since 1966, we have organized battery workshops and factory tours as educational programs to extend classroom learning covering science, social studies, environmental studies, and other subjects. Following the Great East Japan Earthquake, we also planned and organized Necklight School in support of recovery efforts, and have continued to engage in activities around Japan that convey the value and importance of batteries and light during the many earthquakes, typhoons, and other disasters.

Since 1995, we have expanded the region covered by our Visit Battery School first held at elementary schools in Osaka prefecture. And to enable as many children as possible to participate in the Company’s Battery School, in 2002 we began holding Remote Battery School (renamed Online Battery School in July 2022) using teleconferencing systems. These later workshops entered their 20th year in September 2022.

Since 2007, we have also held these workshops globally in Thailand, Iran, Australia, Myanmar, Tanzania, and elsewhere a total of 153 times. (Held 40 times on-site and 113 times online as of September 2023)

We have also undertaken the role of delivering the light of hearts to bring smiles to children. Currently, we are incorporating a broader range of course content that includes the environment, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and disaster prevention. And we will continue to engage in this project as an activity that embodies energy in the pursuit of happiness.

Through our website, we have made our Battery Education Academy publicly available for all to learn about batteries and their close connections with everyday life. The site provides easy-to-understand explanations regarding experiment methods for making batteries from everyday objects, as well as knowledge on using batteries safely. Along with videos on making batteries from fruit and capacitors from aluminum foil, the site is full of text-based content explaining the detailed mechanisms behind these.

　We will continue to communicate these activities in a way that fosters the desire among children to ask why and to learn more with a sense of wonder.

As an activity intended to help foster work ethics and professionalism through work experience, since 2008 we have offered the Work Experience & Career Education program for elementary school students. As part of this program, Panasonic Energy employees in various occupations act as lecturers and hold classes to convey the fun and satisfaction of work. In light of today’s situation where the use of ICT is becoming a normal part of every corner of society, this activity is primarily held online as part of the GIGA School Program administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to ensure one device for each student. In this way, we actively engage in efforts while collaborating with the government and local authorities to teach about society and foster the capability of children to remain relevant in the society of the future.